Colleges / Alan Drooz : Loyola Cagers TV Schedule Will Keep You Up a Bit Late

With apologies to David Letterman, the Loyola Marymount basketball schedule may resemble “Late Night With the Lions” once they embark on the season Nov. 15.

The schedule, released this week but subject to changes dictated by television, shows Loyola playing several national powers on TV, including Nevada-Las Vegas, Oklahoma, LaSalle and Louisiana State.

The Oklahoma game, scheduled for Gersten Pavilion on Dec. 23, will be televised on ESPN following a football game and is set to begin at 9 p.m.--meaning if it goes off on time the score might make the late news.

Things could get even stranger when Loyola takes an eastern road trip after New Year’s. On Jan. 2, the Lions play at Xavier in Cincinnati. The Musketeers have appeared in four straight NCAA tournaments.

Then the Lions go to Coach Paul Westhead’s hometown, Philadelphia, to face his alma mater, St. Joseph’s, on Jan. 4 and powerful LaSalle on Jan. 6. The LaSalle game will be televised and is scheduled at 11:30 p.m. EST--making it one of the few games scheduled to start on Saturday and finish Sunday. The starting time may change, depending on TV scheduling, but for now it’s set to tip off after the late news.

The most demanding test may come in early February when the Lions play three games in four days sandwiched around a trip to Louisiana. The Lions play host to St. Mary’s in a West Coast Conference game on Feb. 1, then travel the next day to Baton Rouge, play LSU on Saturday and return to Los Angeles for another WCC game against San Francisco late Sunday afternoon.

The Lions officially open Nov. 15 at Las Vegas’ Thomas and Mack Center in an opening-round preseason National Invitation Tournament game. The Rebels may be top-rated in some preseason polls. Winners keep playing until they’re eliminated from the 16-team NIT.

The Lions home opener will be Nov. 25 against Nevada-Reno, though those who want a sneak preview will be able to see Loyola play the Australian team in a Nov. 4 exhibition.

Loyola will appear in the Gator Bowl Tournament in Jacksonville, Fla., on Dec. 1-2, opening against Stetson. Preconference home games include UC Santa Barbara on Dec. 9 and Niagara on Dec. 30.

Other notable road games are Dec. 7 at U.S. International in San Diego--the Lions averaged a mind-boggling 171.5 points in two games against the Gulls last season--and Dec. 19 at Oregon State, which has beaten Loyola for two straight years.

WCC play begins Jan. 11 at Santa Clara. The highlight of the conference could be two showdowns with Pepperdine within four days, Feb. 14 at Loyola and Feb. 17 in Malibu.

The season will culminate with the West Coast Conference Tournament being played in the Southland for the first time, March 3-5, in Gersten Pavilion.

Scheduling trivia: With games against LaSalle and LSU, Loyola’s schedule includes the top three scorers in the nation last season--Loyola’s Hank Gathers, LSU’s Chris Jackson and LaSalle’s Lionel Simmons. . . . The Lions, who will be ranked in some preseason polls, will face at least six teams that appeared in last season’s NCAA tournament--Las Vegas, Oregon State, Oklahoma, Xavier, LaSalle and St. Mary’s. Additionally, UC Santa Barbara, Pepperdine and Santa Clara played in the NIT.

Conference officials have to think before they pick up the phone, but they now answer, “West Coast Conference” instead of “West Coast Athletic Conference,” which has been the working title since the mid-1950s.

The name was streamlined last week, mostly to avoid confusion with the Western Athletic Conference (WAC). The WCAC had suffered something of a WAC-y identity crisis for years.

“West Coast Conference accurately describes our league, makes our name easier to say and sharpens our image,” WCC Commissioner Michael Gilleran said. “People thought WCAC stood for everything from a high school league to an aerobic gym to the WAC. We’re truly a West Coast athletic league. We feel this change in our name emphasizes that.”

Indeed, the WCC’s eight schools--including Loyola Marymount and Pepperdine in Los Angeles--stretch from Gonzaga in Spokane, an hour south of the Canadian border, to the University of San Diego, a stone’s throw from Mexico.

WCC publicist Don Ott said initial reaction has been positive.

“We have to let the phone ring a few times so we can think ‘WCC’ and not say that other thing (WCAC),” Ott said, jokingly adding, “We hated giving (the WAC) any credit.”

The University of San Francisco, which used to be one of the West Coast Conference’s shining beacons, recently came close to falling below the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. criteria for full Division I standing when it dropped its women’s softball program.

Division I teams are required to maintain 12 men’s and women’s sports to have Division I status and be eligible for postseason play. But USF hit the bull’s-eye when it came up with a plan to replace softball: The Dons will field a women’s rifle team. Next year they plan to add women’s golf.

USF spokesman Peter Simon explained that the school’s softball program had floundered since the diamond was lost to a new building and parking lot. “We weren’t very successful, and we had only two (players) returning, so it was time,” Simon said.

The school discovered that rifle shooting was a sanctioned sport and hurriedly recruited a team from the ROTC program. If USF had dropped below the minimum number of sports, it could have jeopardized the entire conference’s NCAA standing.

“We were sweating it for a while,” said WCC spokesman Ott. “Then they realized women’s rifle was an NCAA sport and figured there had to be four women on campus who could shoot straight. And it’s a good situation for them because it doesn’t cost them any more scholarships. Rifle and golf are both low-budget programs.”

COLLEGE NOTES:

Tom Neff, sports information director at Cal State Dominguez Hills the last two years, is taking a similar position at Guilford College in North Carolina. . . . El Camino College will play host for UCLA home soccer games this fall. The schedule includes many of the nation’s highest-ranked teams and some night games.